Contradictions

 


Last week I had a lot of fun driving certain types of people crazy. Such a thing isn't that hard to do within the Eve community. Share an opinion that flies in the face of the established line and watch what happens. Eve is a PvP-centric game. The worst thing to ever happen to Eve Online was the mythologizing of the Mittani. CCP is a company that needs to be profitable. Devs actually care about the game. Null Sec is not the end of a progression ladder for Eve players. I could go on and on. Say anything like this publicly and watch the swamp rise to envelope you. This is not my first rodeo.

I understand that it isn't normal for someone to run for CSM, lose, and then tell you they won't be running again. Even though they told you that from the very beginning. The smart thing is to run the first time to gain support for your second attempt the next year. Especially with so many CSM members unable to run next year. I get that it is challenging to understand why someone knows they need to gain Null Sec support in order to win (as evidenced by the fact that ALL winners had NS support) and yet not even try to gain that kind of support. Or to propose a rather simple solution they believe would make the CSM better, all while fully realizing that such a solution is impossible to achieve. I get it. These kind of thoughts can be hard to grasp for some people. Especially those that are benefiting from the systems and attitudes I've described above.

I can be a very contradictory person. I can both like a player personally and loath the character they play in a game. At the same time. I can appreciate the skill, talent, and effort it takes to do certain things and yet not understand why those things are being done. At the same time. I can appreciate a person's work, while knowing that person might be a horrible human being. At the same time. I know, it's crazy. Life is full of contradictions and conflicting truth. Life is rarely black and white.

Inside of Eve I've been a -10 Pirate for over a decade now. In some people's minds that makes me a horrible person. I explode everything I come across in the game. The other day my good friend Ashterothi got mad (good natured) at us in local because we were trying to kill his Draugur. We weren't trying to kill him. It didn't matter to us that it was him flying it. We entered a system with a Draugur on scan. It doesn't matter who is flying the ship. We live by the Stay Frosty Code. Our word, our integrity, is critical to our survival. The basis of this Code goes all the way back to the very first gate camp in New Eden, back to Moo, back to the very first Pirates. It is important. It means we keep our word, our honor, which is more important to us than anything else. We don't have blues. Everyone is our enemy and everyone is our friend. That is how I live inside of Eve Online.

Out here in the real world, as anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm not a Pirate. Crazy huh?

I never ran for CSM before because I was too busy in real life. I have a career, a family, and a life out here that is more important to me than Eve Online. Eve is a hobby. A hobby I enjoy. But this year, due to Covid/Lockdown and changing work patterns, it made sense to give it a shot. But it was always going to be a single shot. This is not "sour grapes" or being a "poor loser" or even saying that "I never wanted to win anyway". It is just the truth. And I know for some people this might seem contradictory. But it isn't.

My Alliance is called A Band Apart. I play Eve on Hard Mode. I have one account. I lead a group of blood-thirsty Pirates. And yet we also put on massive, record-breaking public events. We help new players. We work with New Player groups like Eve-University. We bring content everywhere we go. And we are going to be doing even more of this type of work in the future. I'm personally committed to it. 

So for me, nothing has changed. I ran. I lost. I may run again some day in the future if the mood strikes me. But it won't be next year. I'll continue to advocate for Low Security space, Factional Warfare, Wormholes, the Alliance Tournament, and any other groups, charities, causes, community-events, or other independent minded candidates in the years to come. 

Not because I want to be popular. Or because it is convenient for me to do so right now. But simply because that is exactly what I've been doing since day one. And I ain't going to change now.

You might not like it, but I'm here to stay.